Democratic Republic of the Congo

The wildlife of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has an extremely large bio-diversity and houses many flora and fauna in seasonally flooded forests and grasslands. The Democratic Republic of the Congo also contains rainforest and holds five national parks which are home to many species of Gorilla, big cats, and birds. There are a lot of issues with the DRC and the hunting of “Bushmeat”. This over hunting of wild animals makes resources scarce and reduces the population of endangered and regular animals, especially the Chimpanzee.

The country’s rainforests contain great biodiversity, including many rare and endemic species, such as the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Five of the country’s national parks are listed as World Heritage Sites: the Garumba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salonga and Virunga National Parks, and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. The Democratic Republic of Congo is considered one of the megadiverse nations.

A population of “super-sized” chimpanzees, the so-called Bili apes that the local people say eat the birds in area, has been reported from Bili Forest in the far north, about 200 km east of Bondo, DR Congo. University of Amsterdam scientists observed the animals eating the carcass of a leopard. No scientific evidence has b presented that they hunt and kill big cats, though the Bili chimpanzees exhibit unusual behaviour such as sleeping in large nests on the ground rather than in trees, indicating a possible lack of fear of such predators.

The ecoregion contains areas of permanently flooded swamp forest, seasonally flooded swamp forest, and flooded grassland. The permanently flooded swamp forests are home to extensive stands of Raphia palm. Trees in the seasonally flooded forests include species of Garcinia and Manilkara.

The Western Congolian swamp forests are an ecoregion of the Republic of the Congo and the DMC. Together with the adjacent Eastern Congolian swamp forests, it forms one of the largest continuous areas of freshwater swamp forest in the world. It is a flooded forest with a high canopy, dense undergrowth and has a muddy floor. It has not been disturbed very much by outside influences and so remains largely pristine as getting through this forest is called “almost impossible”.

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LMMC

The Like-Minded Mega diverse Countries (LMMC) is a group of countries that harbor the majority of the Earth’s species and are therefore considered extremely biodiversity. They are rich in biological diversity (60-70% of the world’s biodiversity) and associated traditional knowledge.